After The Portal
by Haberdashing
Summary: After coming through the portal Stan opened for him, Ford discovers that not all is as it seems.
1. Chapter 1

Ford quietly seethed as Stan described the day of their fateful fight in 1982, as Stan spoke of the thick snow that carpeted the landscape, of the blustering winds that blew fat snowflakes to and fro, of the bitter cold that sank deep into his bones.

Because once again, his brother was telling a lie for no one's benefit but his own.

It had been a sweltering summer afternoon when Ford fell into- no, was pushed into the portal. Stan had arrived with that filthy hoodie of his half-drenched in sweat, and Ford had had to use one hand to shield his eyes from the sun's bright rays while his other pointed a crossbow at what he had then initially assumed was Bill in disguise. There hadn't been a snowflake in sight.

Ford knew that. Stan knew that. So why, then, was Stan so adamantly claiming otherwise?

There was, perhaps, some grand metaphor to be found in setting the scene in winter, in a time where warmth and light were rare finds indeed- but Stan was presenting his version of events as the unvarnished truth, not some overwrought work of fiction. But what did he have to gain? Some small modicum of added pity for traversing the icy roads of Oregon in February, for braving wind and snow in his brother's name? That had to be it- and yet, for a lie of that magnitude, one that could so easily be uncovered, the payoff seemed awfully low.

Ford could easily have called his brother's bluff, could easily have exposed his fraud, but he chose to stay silent for the time being. Perhaps he could speak up later, use this as ammunition when it was needed most, proof that Stan was a liar through and through.

Because that's all it was, wasn't it?

At least, that's what Ford had assumed at first, but one conversation with his great-nephew deepened the mystery.

Once Dipper started talking to Ford, the boy never seemed to stop; when they weren't holding DDnMD sessions or working to close the rift that Stan had so carelessly created, they spent hours just making conversation, whether comparing their studies of Gravity Falls' anomalies or their respective pasts. This time, Dipper was talking about how he'd become so interested in Ford's third journal in the first place, and his search for "the author", never knowing that the search would end so close to home.

"-and for a bit I thought Old- I mean, I thought Fiddleford was the author- see, we'd found this laptop in the bunker, and when it, uh, got smashed I saw the name McGucket Labs on it-"

"McGucket Labs, you say?"

"Yeah- it was from his computer company."

Ford had heard the name McGucket Labs before. Ford had _said_ the name McGucket Labs before, said it many times over in his attempts to convince his associate to give his company a more professional name. But Fiddleford had stubbornly insisted on the company going by Fiddleford Computermajigs, despite Ford's arguments that such a name would ensure his work never got the respect it deserved, saying that he didn't "want the respect of a bunch of humorless old codgers in business suits anyhow".

"R-right, of course…" Ford spoke as if on autopilot, spitting out words while his brain was racing away on another track altogether.

It was, he supposed, theoretically possible that Fiddleford had finally taken his advice, renamed his company something sensible, and made a new computer with a label to match. But after long decades of dimension-hopping, after spending years upon years discerning the differences between nigh-identical versions of reality… another possibility came to mind all too easily.

"Grunkle Ford, are you okay? You look kind of pale…"

Ford forced himself to put on a smile as his mind reeled. "Actually, now that you mention it, I think I could use some time alone."

The moment the elevator door closed as Dipper retreated upstairs, Ford ran to the journals, newly returned to him but only briefly perused in the interim, to confirm his suspicions.

The journals were all wrong.

No, that wasn't quite right. The journals weren't _all_ wrong. Some bits seemed right- pages that he recognized at a glance, snippets that he felt sure had been written by his own hand (and, in a way, they had been)- but interspersed were segments that were entirely unfamiliar to him, words that he knew he'd never written, tales of creatures he'd never encountered. Ford's lengthy discussion of vampires- how to find them, how to fight them, how to cure them, information all hard-won through experiences he'd much rather not relive- was nowhere to be found, and in its place was a detailed description of different types of ghosts, knowledge far beyond that he himself had gathered through his own handful of brief encounters with such creatures.

Ford felt sick to his stomach as the truth behind his suspicions sank in.

He had thought that, after thirty long years jumping between unfamiliar dimensions, he was finally back home, albeit under less than favorable circumstances.

He had thought wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

Ford tried his best to ignore the newfound realization that this dimension- the one on the other end of the portal that had disrupted his fateful fight with Bill; the one in which he was now stuck, seemingly for good- was not his own. Ford threw himself into his work with vigor, focusing on saving this world rather than dwelling upon another. And there was much for him to do, much that had to be done if Bill was to be kept at bay, and so his mind was kept busy with the details of that plan all too easily. There were times that he forgot that this dimension wasn't actually his home, that, much as the rest of the family embraced his presence, he did not truly belong there.

But when he overheard Stan telling the kids that the big party he'd thrown back on June 15th had been for his birthday all along, Ford couldn't help himself.

He waited until Dipper and Mabel were gone, off on some errand that he was half-convinced Stan had invented on the spot, before speaking up.

"Stanley, you do know our birthday's on the _eighteenth_ of June, don't you?"

Stan spun around to face Ford, who stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure whether to step forward.

"No, it's the fifteenth- Ford, don't tell me you forgot your own birthday!"

Ford folded his arms against his chest. "I most certainly did not. Our birthday's on the eighteenth, and I know that for a fact."

"Well, I know _I_ didn't forget our birthday, and clearly one of us must have, so-"

"Not necessarily."

Ford hadn't meant for the comment to come out as more than a murmur, hadn't meant for Stan to overhear- and yet his speech came out loud enough that Stan paused mid-sentence, staring at him skeptically.

"Not necessarily? What the hell does that mean?"

Ford paused, hesitated, let his arms fall to his sides and felt his hands tremble. "N-nothing."

"You're a terrible liar, Ford. Just spit it out."

Ford took a deep breath, weighed his thoughts before continuing- but the stony gaze Stanley was shooting him made it all too clear that he had to continue, one way or another. "Your-" He pointed one arm in Stan's direction, made vague circles in the air. "-birthday might be the fifteenth, but mine-" He pointed at himself, feeling a bit foolish. "-is definitely on the eighteenth."

"Wha- we were born fifteen minutes apart, Ford, not three _days_ \- and you're older than me, anyway."

Another difference there, fifteen minutes apart instead of thirteen, and Ford thought about arguing the point but instead sighed as he prepared to explain himself further. "In this world-" More circles in the air, wide circles only broadly pointed in Stanley's direction. "-in _your_ world, we might have been born on the fifteenth. But in my world, in my home dimension, we both were born on the eighteenth."

Stan opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again after a long moment of silence.

"You're saying you're not from here."

Ford rubbed one hand against his temple. "Yes."

"But the portal- I-"

"You searched for a Stanford Pines, and you got one. Just not the one you were after."

"But- this is crazy- should I- should I send you... home, then?"

Ford broke into a laugh at that one, loud harsh laughter echoing through the room. "Oh yes, let's rip a second hole in the fabric of the universe, splendid idea there Stanley, surprised I didn't think of that myself."

"Wait, what-"

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of two sets of rapidly approaching footsteps, Dipper and Mabel evidently having finished the chores that Stan had so haphazardly assigned.

"We'll talk about this more tomorrow, got it?"

Ford nodded tersely in agreement. He wouldn't be looking forward to it, but he had to admit that, now that the secret was out, there was more that he would have to discuss with Stan.

And Ford intended to have that conversation the next day, he really did. And maybe he would have if that day wasn't the day-

 _or days, really, because what happened then went on for several days, perhaps for weeks even, not that he could keep track when he spent most of it either unconscious or going through seemingly-endless torture sessions in the Fearamid-_

 _or not a day at all, really, because once it was all over it was as if no time had passed in the outside world, as if nothing had happened and it had all been just a bad dream, though the residents of Gravity Falls knew better-_

If that day wasn't the _time_ , then, when the rift had broken open.

If that day wasn't when Bill had tried to take the universe by force, stopped only by a fluke of nature and a missing equation.

If that day wasn't when Ford had had to type his brother's name into a memory gun, his shaking hands holding the gun to Stanley's head and pulling the trigger.

If that day wasn't when Stanley Pines, as the world knew him, briefly ceased to exist.

His memory came back. Somehow, miraculously, Stan's memory came back, even when it should have been totally erased, even when Stan Pines should have been gone from the world for good. But he remembered things piecemeal as they combed through Mabel's scrapbook and whatever other artifacts they could find to jog his memory- Ford remembered owning some old home videos of them as kids, found them exactly where he remembered putting them.

And as Stanley's memory returned over time, Ford tried to forget that the man next to him wasn't really his brother, that there should have been a different Stanford by his side helping him through this. He really, really tried.

But every time he started to feel lulled back into complacency, something would turn up to remind Ford that this world was not his own. The home videos that he retrieved, like the journals that he had perused before Bill had turned them into dust and ashes, felt right in some places, but entirely wrong in others. Sometimes it was minor things, a quote gone awry or a gesture that didn't fit what Ford remembered from the same scene. Often it was the total absence of their brother, Shermie- Ford knew him as their older brother, a grounding presence in many childhood scenes, but in this dimension Shermie was not only younger than them, but so much younger that Stanley had left home before Shermie had learned to walk. Ford studied these videos, these artifacts from another Stanford's childhood, looking not for what would bring back a memory like Stanley did, but for what _didn't_ bring back memories, what didn't fit into what Ford remembered from way back when.

Sometimes the way Stan's memories came back seemed logical enough, a picture or video triggering reminders of the time they depicted, but sometimes it was more haphazard, Stan remembering something new in the middle of dinner or when drifting off to sleep. Stan remembered Dipper and Mabel and even Soos well before he remembered Ford, and part of Ford felt as though he should have been insulted by this, but all things considered it was only natural, given that the man Stanley had pushed into the portal thirty years ago was a different man from Ford in more ways than one.

Four days after the world nearly ended, Ford, who had managed to fall asleep on the couch in the room that had once been his (or, not _his_ his, but- but the couch frame still sagged in that old familiar way, from many long nights spent reading until his eyes glazed over, many long nights where he fell asleep without meaning to and cursed the sunlight when it trickled in through the window), was roughly awoken by someone pounding on the door.

Even before he opened the door, even before he heard the voice coming from the other side, Ford knew it was Stan standing there, could guess at least generally what he was so urgently needed for.

"Ford, we need to talk, goddammit!"

Ford opened the door. Stan was in his boxers, and there were bags under his eyes. A quick glance at the window showed that what sunlight was coming through was still dim and muted, a sunrise only just beginning.

"I imagine whatever you remembered didn't include that there are children in this house, and that you therefore should avoid yelling swear words at the top of your lungs around dawn?"

Stan snorted. "That's not yelling at the top of my lungs. You should _hear_ me yelling at the top of my lungs."

"No, I really shouldn't. Especially not this early in the morning."

"Fair 'nuff."

"So, what did you remember this time?" Ford gestured so as to invite Stan inside, then gently shut the door behind them as Stan promptly plopped down in the nearest chair.

"I remembered that we were having a- a fucking _conversation_ that we were going to finish before this whole-" Stan rested one hand against his temple, fingernails digging into his scalp. "-this whole Weirdmageddon bullshit got in the way. So let's get back to that."

It took a moment for Ford to realize what Stan was referring to.

"Stanley, I really don't think now is the time to discuss that, you're still recovering-"

"Don't." Stan held up one hand. "Just... just don't."

Ford sighed, his body visibly deflating as he let out his breath.

"So... you're from another world, huh?"

"...yes."

Stan's gaze lingered on Ford, and Ford couldn't quite make out Stan's expression. "But you still saved this one."

Ford spoke up immediately. " _I_ saved the world? Stanley, _you_ -"

"Can it, poindexter. You pulled the trigger. You erased him from my mind. Everybody's acting like I'm the only hero here, but we both know that's a damn lie."

"I..." Ford's legs felt shaky, and he retrieved a chair for himself and rested one arm against it before continuing. "I didn't save anyone. I'm the reason he was here in the first place, I can't-"

"Were _you_ the reason he was here? Or was that the other Ford?"

Ford took a deep breath, then let it out as he collapsed onto the chair. "...the other Ford, I suppose, but I still endangered my own world, and I- I can't make up for that, now, can I?"

"Does it matter?"

The question lingered in the air for a long moment, Ford struggling in vain to put his racing thoughts into words, before Stan added, "Could he have sent you back?"

"Sent me back?"

"To your- home world, or whatever. Fixed what I fucked up for you."

Ford opened his mouth, closed it again, then repeated the process before finally saying in a voice that came out more softly than he had intended, "The thought had not even crossed my mind."

"Huh. How 'bout that."

Stan and Ford looked at one another, silence lingering in the air once more.

Once again, Stan was the first to speak up as Ford grappled with what to say. "You know, maybe this whole mix-up was really a good thing. The Ford I remember could be a real jerk sometimes."

Ford gave a quick, dark laugh before responding. "I can't promise to be any better."

"I'm not asking you to."

Ford hesitated for a moment before replying, "Well, I don't think the Stanley I knew would have spent three decades working to get me back, either. So it goes both ways, I suppose."

Stan laughed. "That's the spirit. And hey, about the whole birthday mix-up- maybe we can have two separate birthday parties, one on the fifteenth and one on the eighteenth. You always wanted to try that, didn't you?"

Ford nodded silently as Stan pressed on.

"Or, hell, take it one step further and just celebrate for four days in a row, make it a real birthday extravaganza- I bet Mabel would love that."

 _Mabel._

How had he not thought about Mabel?

Would she and her brother accept him if they knew-

Even before his mind could finish formulating the question, Ford knew the answer, though some dark part of him wanted to believe otherwise.

They wouldn't care. Stan was right- to them, it would likely be a good excuse to throw bigger parties, nothing more. Besides, this world's Ford had been gone well before they had been born, so they had no one to compare him to, no reason to reject him in favor of someone they had never met.

Ford wondered if, back in the universe where he had begun life, events had played out just as they had here so as to unite the twins' parents, to ensure that Mabel and Dipper Pines came into being.

Ford decided that if they didn't, that that other universe was far worse off for their absence.

"I- I never told them. You're the only one who knows."

"Well, do you want them to know? 'Cause I've kept secrets for decades on end now, I can keep this one under wraps too."

A flicker of doubt flared up in Ford's mind, but he extinguished it before responding. "They should know, yes. They deserve to know."

"Well..." Stan coughed and looked away from Ford. Ford's gaze wandered as well, a quick glance at the window revealing that what had been a dim trickle of light from the start of dawn was now something resembling full-blown daylight. "They'll probably be up soon, so if you want to, er..."

Ford picked up where his brother had trailed off, a tight smile on his face. "I'll tell them while you make breakfast."

"Makes sense. Better to do it and be done with it already." After a slight pause, Stan added, "Guess you won't have trouble making conversation at breakfast today, huh?"

Stan barked out a laugh as he finished speaking, and Ford joined in, his own laughter soft and shaky but still there.

"No, I suppose we won't."


End file.
